9/9/2011 -

Last night I got to scratch something else off my bucket list. I got to see Brian Wilson live at  the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin. To think I had just bought a ticket a week earlier, and had almost missed the last chance to ever see him live again, as Brian announced this would be his last tour ever. And how can you blame him...

Brian Wilson is an old man. He sits on a stool the whole gig, in the middle of the stage and with a keyboard in front of him he barely touches. Every now and again he seems absent minded, with his head down low, showing the marks of his history of mental illness. Every now and then he actually turns his back to the audience and watches the band play, as if he were merely observant of the rendition of his songs and orchestrations rather than the protagonist. But it hardly matters.

Firstly, anyone who knows a bit about the Beach Boys knows that Brian Wilson was never the showman in the band - he was the quiet one on stage. Mike Love was the emcee, and a bloody great one at that. As a matter of fact, Brian despised playing live concerts so much that he quit and was replaced on bass by Bruce Johnson while he got to write masterpieces like Pet Sounds and Smile at home for the Beach Boys. One has to wonder whether he would still be playing live concerts at this age had it not been for his father selling his whole back catalogue for nothing back in the day.

A man like Paul McCartney can still shake up whole stadiums with his showmanship. But Brian Wilson was a modern musical genius who never put as much thought about his showmanship as much as he did with which way the accordion faced the microphone. He belongs in the studio.

Still, when you are the man responsible for such amazing songs as 'California Girls', 'Fun, Fun, Fun', 'Don't Worry Baby' and arguably the best album ever, 'Pet Sounds', people are gonna want to see you live. So, it is an absolute privilege to get to witness the man in person. To hear his vocal harmonies live. To feel the vibrancy of his songs. Then you realise that the placement of Brian Wilson at the centre of the stage behind a keyboard becomes a metaphorical vision of a man sitting behind a desk, writing a metaphorical masterpiece and then stepping back and admiring it, and seeing other people wonder at it amazed. Brian Wilson absolutely defines the role of a songwriter, and the impression you get is that he tours the world taking his songs with him not because he loves to perform or because he craves attention or publicity, not even because he has a political activist motivation - but because he simply wants to see others enjoy them and boast them as his songs, without any malice or greed. 

As a matter of fact, at some stage Brian said to the audience - 'with this next number, we're going to show you we are a great band. We may not be the best band ever, but the guys down the road got nothing on us.'  It was funny, we all laughed, but then you think 'for god's sake, did the man that wrote Good Vibrations actually just say that? Shouldn't he be saying things like 'we're fucking awesome, 'cos my songs are great, thank you goodnight'?

The theatre setting was strange. Maybe it's different in the States, but here in Europe, people tend to be more quiet and restrained in a theatre. So, while during his Gershwin numbers you really got to admire it, it seemed strangely restrictive during songs like Surfin' U.S.A. and Dance Dance Dance. 

I did not give a flying fuck, I danced anyways. I was at the back row near the sound guy and at first I felt awkward being one of maybe only four people getting up to dance, but then I thought 'I am in the same room as Brian Wilson. Life is good right now' and shook it up. Everyone did get up for the encores, and they also got up, randomly, for Do You Wanna Dance. which was kick ass.

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PART TWO (Because this post is about something so important to me that I feel the need to break it up into two parts): the personal part

Unlike a lot of people I know, I got into the Beach Boys much earlier than the Beatles. I guess the reason was very simple; my dad owned a compilation of theirs and didn't own one of The Beatles. Not that my father ever listened to The Beach Boys, and I still don't understand whi he had it, but he had it, so I listened to it. It was almost natural that I should like it.

Going back in time, I remember I must have been about 5 years old when I was in a school play, and we did a dance to the song 'Surfin' U.S.A.' and I specifically remember being so excited about the organ and guitar solo every time it came up!

Okay, so I bought my first copy of Pet Sounds when I was 18, so I wasn't so young. But I remember seeing it in Bell Book and Candle, the best record store in Galway, and my vision going blurry. Before I knew it, I had walked to the counter, paid for the album and starter walking home, because I had spent all my bus money to pay for it, anxious to listen to it. To this day it remains my favourite album all time.

Of course, as I grew up, my love for the Beach Boys just increased. Now I consider them one of my very favourite bands. But I also came came to learn about Brian Wilson himself. His fears, struggles and mental instability that helped him create all those masterpieces. In fact, all those harmonies couldn't have been contained in any ordinary brain - you need to have the brain of a genius to be able to invent so many harmonies at the same time to really create something so ground breaking, and fit it around the rock and roll genre, updating it and leaving a huge mark on the music that came after The Beach Boys.

Brian's vulnerability made me love him even more. Jim Morrison sang about getting wasted. Jimi Hendrix got over by singing about sex. Brian Wilson sang about being a kid, and getting married, and simply being happy. In one of his best songs, In My Room, he sings about how there is one, and only one place where he feels safe. Remember, this was one of the biggest names in world music at the time, and he was openly admitting to being insecure and scared of the outside world. This is something I can easily identify with. Sometimes the future, the outside world and everything that might burst my bubble makes me so nervous that I can hardly breathe. I put on a Beach Boys song, and I find serenity and tranquillity again.

On a more general note, I think everyone should be allowed to see their musical heroes live. Music is still one of those forms of art where live performance matters more than anything. If cinema is the equivalent for films, we know how much they are suffering. The theatre is only for a certain type of crowd, and the more tasteful it is and the less people are going to want to see it. My point is that whether you like Justin Bieber or Brian Wilson, what you get out of a live show of theirs is something that you will never, ever forget. I can think about last night for a whole life and have a smile on my face and a warm feeling cross my heart.

PART THREE: the stand out moments

It started off with the songs from the last record, 'Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin'. It was very sophisticated. I knew all the songs from it, and I must say they sounded much better live than they did on the album, but the theatrical setting and the whole atmosphere that came with it must have helped too.

I really enjoyed them. Of course, when the Beach Boys numbers started rolling in, the audience came from being observant, mature and reflective to being excited and fired up.

The first time everyone got up to dance was with Do You Wanna Dance. Everyone got up after the keyboardist told us to forget about the place being a theatre and get up to dance. It was great, cos up to that point I didn't know whether I would be allowed. I think I sat down twice more after then, and stayed up for the rest of it.

God Only Knows got a standing ovation that seemed to have lasted for ages. I couldn't stop clapping, and neither could anyone else. Word on the internet was that it lasted for two minutes. Hey, I have never seen that happen, EVER! so I had goosebumps. 

Heroes and Villains, musically speaking, was probably their best performance of the night. I love the song, but hearing it live was just perfect. Most of those musicians would have recorded this song with Brian for his Smile album a few years ago, so maybe that's why they did it so flawlessly. Nevertheless, I thought it was the best, it was very trippy, irresistibly poppy and just amazing.

I could have cried when Brian Wilson came out at the last encore for many reasons. One, that song 'All Summer Long' is an amazing song, but it's also so nostalgic and made me wish I could have been young then and not now. Two, I knew that now, Brian would definitely be done, and I would probably never see him live again - but he left me with an experience and a feeling of joy that I had hardly ever felt before. It was the perfect song to close the amazing gig with.

Then, in the end, Brian said something that puzzled me. 'Thank you Dublin, see you soon'. I thought this was the last tour, Brian!...

5/9/2011 - PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL HEAVEN or my thoughts on the abilities of individuals to communicate with entities from the other side of the light and the ability of television producers to exploit that

I went back home tonight, had dinner with my family. Then we watched a bit of TV together and we ended up watching a show about parapsychology.

Parapsychology is the science of communication between humans and entities and presences from the other side of the light i.e. spirits and ghosts. It is also something that my parents are really into.

The TV programme showed a crew going to places, like scenes of brutal murders, abandoned prisons, decaying insane asylums etc., along with a few mediums and equipment that was able to record ultrasounds and hence the voices of the dead. There was a bunch of other equipment to measure the thermal values of the different rooms. Yes, I did think it was entertaining, although undeniably cheesy. But while my parents deeply believed in everything that was shown and never doubted most of the evidence that was given that ghosts were indeed in those settings, I was very doubtful.

One of the things the show made use of was EVP, which stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon. These are electronically generated noises that are recorded but unplanned and unintended. The show made use of it as if it was the spirits saying words, and the way they shot the whole sequence, you would have believed it, because it did give you the creeps.

One of bits was set in a castle inhibited by spirits of all sorts. They recorded for ages, and in the end came back with a feminine voice that seemed to have been saying 'help, I am trapped in time'. I wonder, would someone who was really trapped in time really ever know of being trapped in time? No matter, the average viewer would believe it, without knowing that those mics are so sensitive and catch signals the human ear cannot because it is picking up things from other wavelengths - but it's not the voices of ghosts it's getting. It's static and stray radio transmissions of all sorts.

I think that if a plane flew over the plane and the captain spoke on the intercom, saying 'we'll be landing shortly', the average human television viewer would be so scared that he or she would probably start riots of panic thinking that an alien invasion would be imminent.

3/9/2011 - KEEP ME AWAY FROM INTERNET FORUMS or how somehow I manage to be either despised or loved on the internet, but never ignored - unless, of course, you talk about this blog

My tastes may be old fashioned, in the sense that I would rather buy a record on vinyl than download music on the computer, watch a good old silent film than a CGI filled Hollywood blockbuster etc. But when it comes to the internet, I am fully appreciative of its function. There is no better means of communication, and in many ways it is the most 'real' means of communication in my opinion. It is also, obviously, much smarter than television (a medium I am not an owner of, and happily so).

Of course, the internet is filled with assholes, people that generally get a kick out of mocking or making fun of others to the point where it gets cheaply insulting and a representation of ignorance. No matter, the world is ignorant in itself...

I am often a rather uncomfortable character. I have strange views and beliefs that actually goes against even the views and beliefs of the minorities. For instance, I am neither left winged or right winged - I am totally apolitical. So apolitical that anarchy to me represents a useless and frivolous utopia. I am a vegetarian, which to the majority is a world represents weakness - but I say, what's weak about drastically opposing any kind of murder? I will save this argument, for it is something I will probably discuss in another post.

Back to the subject at hand - lately, as I explained in my last post, I have been desperately looking for a suitable replacement for the guitarist of our band that decided to quit. My posts on the internet have been rather futile, and in the space of two days, on two different forums, I was banned and ridiculed.

I have no shame, nor do I have anything to be ashamed of, so here is the account of my latest misadventures on these two forums.

One of them was boards.ie, an Irish website. The drummer in the band posted, upon my request, a notice regarding the search for a guitarist. This was the second time we put up a post for a guitarist, and the first time was as useless as the second time, as we never got replies. So, once again disenchanted by the possibilities of us finding a guitarist on that website, I posted on the thread:

'this website is useless for finding musicians, mate'.

That is when the world seemed to have collapsed.

Right away I got a warning from the forum moderator, appalled by my behaviour, and eventually from a member of the leading staff of the website, saying that I was risking a ban, which would be issued upon me instantly if I dared to post anything else on that thread (the thread regarding my band and the same thread that existed because of me!). But I, never one to back away from a challenge, posted almost immediately by quoting the warnings and following them up with a sarcastic:

'LOL'

BAM!!! Private messages, e-mails and replies telling me that I was banned...for a whole week! Now, this isn't because I 'ruined' a thread. This is simply because I dared to give out about the website on the website. It's bloody censorship, and it's downright wrong. The official reason behind my ban was that my criticism was not constructive. But come on, people, forums aren't so complicated to figure out - what kind of constructive criticism could I offer to something that works on a simple formula that couldn't be changed...

Moving on.

My quest for a guitarist continued. I posted the notice on a local Galway website dedicated to its music scene. In it, I let loose and specified that we hated the guitarist for quitting the band cos he left us hanging after we had made so many commitments and so on. Long story short, I NEVER GOT A HELPFUL REPLY!

The people on the forum, definitely having loads of time on their hands, immediately started shooting on me being so personal on the initial thread, and making fun of me for some reason I do not understand. Eventually, it even got down to people advising me not to start a band and instead go to college and get a real job. Now, this is supposed to be members of the local music scene! The explanations are two; one, is that they are all miserable failures with nothing better to do during their day but prevent other bands stealing their saturday night slots in run down bars around the country. Two, just regular trolls looking for something to do between masturbation sessions.

Either way, after numerous posts that did not help my initial quest, I ended up targeting one guy who had given me the friendly advice of sticking with being an average Joe (like predisposition for art is something anyone can just give up) and called him things like 'gobshite' and 'miserable cunt'.

I won't get into it too much, but the whole thing uncontrollably developed from there into a jibe fest. Some guy, who must really have been bothered by my posts, decided to post links to various of my pages. Which is fine with me, make fun of me, I don't give a fuck. But when you make fun of the band, that is when I want to look you up and if I ever know who you are, give you a beating.

I'm a lover not a fighter, but hurt my pride and I'll shove your teeth down your throat, and I'll do it too, because I'm a mean hothead if you mess me.

The thread is still going on, and this is the link to it.  http://www.screamformegalway.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=musicians&action=display&thread=4057

Unfortunately, you have to be a member to view it, and I wouldn't bother signing up though it takes a few seconds. I think what annoys me the most about this thread is the people that keep saying this is the best thread ever. I don't really know what to say, some people are like that, they get a kick out of mocking people. I do it too in real life.

The only thing is, they know my name, and I don't know theirs, and that really bothers me. I know most are metalheads. But I really would love to know who they are...oh boy would I ever!